Chapter 12
Everyone in the courtroom stood as the Judge entered the room. The prisoner, Number 107, stood also, her long brown hair sweeping majestically over her shoulders. She showed no sign of anxiety although the careful observer could see that there was a vein in her neck which continually trembled.
The Judge spoke:
"There is no doubt that you are guilty of one of the most heinous crimes against the universal order-the desire to use public property for your own self-interest. You were caught cutting down a White Spruce sapling in order to make something of wood;
'If there was a punishment of death, I would gladly give it out since what you have done is even horrifying to think of.
"But alas the death penalty has been long since abolished. Please hear me, 107. It is my judgment that you be sent to the floating planet of Temas, in the galaxy of Fl-9 and there be deprived of your human personality and invested with a new one from the animal world. Perhaps, only then, will you be able to see the magnitude of your crime.
"May God have mercy on your soul."
The Judge walked out of the room, his majestic cape swirling after him.
107 felt ill, her legs were trembling and there were spots before her eyes.
They shackled 107 and led her from the courtroom. A silent crowd was gathering and they watched her without compassion. Every once in a while, a child leaped forward and cried out: "murderer, murderer."
The guard who was leading her to the transport vehicle removed the shackles once they were a distance from the court house.
"You won't like Temas," he said.
"Do I have a choice?"
The guard grinned and kept walking. They walked for miles along the sky-wall of the city, which was, in reality, the base of the atmospheric cover which kept pollution to a minimum.
"There," the guard pointed.
107 followed his arm and she saw the thin vehicle anchored off the wall.
"What happens in Temas?" she asked, suddenly frightened now that the reality of her trip was almost upon her.
"It's something with animals."
"Everybody knows that but what really happens?"
"I guess you" have to wait until you get there in order to find out."
He shoved her into the loading cylinder and she braced herself as she was sucked into the ship.
She landed heavily even though the floor was covered with layers of foam. Immediately in front of her was an officer at the desk, scrawling something on an oversized pad. He looked up at her:
"So you're the tree murderer."
She stared back at him defiantly. He smiled, continued writing for a while, and then put the pad off to one side.
"On Temas, you won't get a chance to be recalcitrant. Luckily for you, you're the only prisoner on board. If you don't cause trouble, we won't have to chain you but one false move and we'll completely immobilize you. Is that clear?"
107 nodded, showing that she understood the arrangement. A few minutes later, she felt the ship take off and within seconds they were into the great space reef, which had been constructed to ease the passage ships into the outer galaxies. It was almost an electronic roller coaster the ships literally running on electronic fields, much as a trolley runs on tracks. Every hour one of the crew came around and distributed pills to slow up the body clocks. This was necessary since space travel often took hundreds of years. With the pills, the body adjusted to the length of the flight and when one landed on a distant planet, perhaps eight thousand earth years away, the body had aged only eight hours. For just a moment, 107 thought of not taking the pills an easy form of suicide. But then she popped them into her mouth she was too proud not to be able to take any punishment given to her.
Finally, they were at Temas. She stepped off the ship and into a black world. The only light came from small plants which had been bred to give off light in the photosynthesis process. These plants were spaced at a distance of about a hundred feet from each other and the light they gave off was insufficient.
Three men were waiting for her. Two of them were dressed in the uniform of guards but the third appeared as if he had some authority.
"I am warden of Temas," he introduced himself.
107 said nothing, looking at her jailer with a mixture of curiosity and contempt.
"You are here to serve your sentence and we'll make sure you do just that. No doubt, you know what happens on Temas. You are here for an identity exchange, which will be done by a series of drugs and actual experiences, the animal which you will eventually become, not physically of course, but emotionally and psychologically, has already been chosen.
"Follow the guards and they will take you to your destination. Remember, if you become difficult, we can become difficult, and if you are cooperative, we will be cooperative."
He turned his back and began to walk away. For the first time, she understood the finality of her plight, stuck on a Godforsaken black planet, undergoing an identity change which she didn't want. Suddenly, she panicked and broke away from the group and ran into the darkness. Her feet churned as she went stumbling and tripping over the unfamiliar terrain. Her breath came in labored gulps, her chest seemed to be on fire, but she ran with the desperation of the prisoner.
They caught her only a few hundred yards from the ship and clubbed her unconscious.
107 regained consciousness and looked around. She had no idea how long she had been out or where she was. There was no sign of other human habitation and the walls of the place seemed like a limestone cave. There were labyrinths running in and out of the main cave and she could hear the sound of dripping water off in the distance.
She tried to stand and fell back to the ground. She realized she had been drugged, her reaction time was slow and there was a deadening aspect of every thought and action. 107 realized that the identity exchange had already begun, with the introduction of drugs into the bloodstream, but so far, all she felt was fatigue and dullness.
Gradually, the secondary effects of the drugs wore off and she began to walk about the cave, peering into the passageways, trying to find some other trace of life. She found the water, a small, fresh flowing stream. Bending down, she scooped some up in her hand and drank it. It was clear and cold and altogether delicious. There were some plants near the stream and she smelled them? they were edible, a form of protein root which had been developed by earth scientists to meet the food problems of other planets. 107 had tasted them before and she arched her eyebrows somewhat, aware that all the ingredients for life were present in the cave. It couldn't have been a chance occurrence; it must have been constructed on purpose. The whole arrangement was the work of man; that she could tell.
Suddenly, she stood straight up, the back of her neck almost bristling. From somewhere in the cave she heard a long, terrible howl, which seemed to bounce off the walls and keep reverberating in her ears.
There was only one animal which could make a sound like that; the timber wolf. She shuddered, suddenly aware of her plight, suddenly aware that her identity exchange would have something to do with the wolf. There was no other reason shy such an animal should be brought from Earth to Temas.
That night she crawled into one of the depressions in the cave and tried to stay awake, afraid that if the wolf should approach there would be no way to save herself. But fatigue and the effects of the strange drugs overwhelmed her fears and she fell into a deep sleep.
Somewhere in the early morning, she woke, aware that something was near her. She could smell the musty odor of another living thing. Gradually her eyes became used to the dark and she saw him the wolf not more than fifty feet away, watching her, waiting.
A terrible, overwhelming fear spread through her body. She scraped some loose stones from the floor of the cave and flung them at the wolf. He turned and walked slowly away.
She was still shivering after he was gone. Her hands bled from having scraped the raw ground for missies to throw at him. Her head felt as if it was being pulled apart by two conflicting forces, but she knew this was the drug, trying to destroy her will, trying to ease her into the identity exchange.
Night after night the wolf returned to watch her and night after night she flung things at him, driving him away.
Finally, one night, she no longer cared, she was too tired to fight. She lay there, her clothes almost ripped completely into tatters, and waited for him.
The wolf approached. She could smell his musky odor and see the twin points of his eyes, gleaming in the darkness. He stopped about a foot away, watching her. Then his nose began to inspect her body, poling in every area. She was stiff, as if she was dead. The wolf buried his muzzle between her legs for a moment and then savagely ripped her clothes off, until her naked flesh covered the cave floor like a rug.
After having explored her, he backed off, and sat on his haunches licking himself and cleaning his fur. 107 lost her fear and sat up, looking at the strange creature. When he came toward her again, she lay back. His muzzle went between her legs again and this time, his massive tongue flicked out and swept across her vagina, suddenly and dramatically.
Something in her exploded, something in her reacted violently to that terrible tongue, as it swept its way across her glistening and hot vaginal lips. Then the wolf was gone, out or reach and sight, fleeing as suddenly as it had come.
That night it came again and this time the drugs and the cave had begun to do their work. As he approached her, she rolled over on her back and spread her legs. The wolf approached, on stiffened legs as if it was courting in his native habitat.
The muzzle went between her thighs and she moaned, and closed and opened her thighs a few times on the muzzle. She wanted his tongue, she wanted to feel that rasping piece of flesh.
It flicked out and caught her full on the vagina. Then, in great sweeping movements, the wolf brought his tongue against her, until 107 was left a gasping, shivering hulk. She raised her body, wanting more, wanting all that savage tongue could bring. Her arms were stretched out to him but the wolf saw only the palpitating steamy nest which seemed to suck his tongue up.
The next night the wolf came again, more boldly, as if the woman was his. She waited for him and once she saw the glaring eyes, she crept toward him, on all fours, and moved beneath his body.
It was staring at her still in its sheath, covered by the protection of swirling hair. She grasped it in both of her hands and felt the potential, felt the wildness of its shape. Under her gentle massage, the penis began to grow, until, a few moments later, she saw the pink tip. Slowly, the erect cock began to emerge from the sheath, inch after inch of shivering erect flesh, the flesh of a wild beast.
She took it into her mouth, her body almost exploding as the tangy wild taste of the flesh seemed to saturate her body. She sucked on it and it lashed her mouth, going from side to side in a sort of frenzy. There was no turning back for her, no way to release it. It held her rather than she holding it--it destroyed her mouth and tongue and all she could do was hold on and bring her mouth to love. Then the wolf shivered and a moment later she felt her mouth full of the wolf's seed, full of the strange, almost beautiful tasting seed which caressed the lining of her mouth and drifted far back into her throat. She drank it greedily.
That night she came to her senses for a while. She seemed to try and fight what was happening, to call on her inner resources. But the identity transfer was too strong; she was on her way to wolfhood and there was no force on that planet which could stop it. That night she wept, for she knew that the situation was now irreversible. What's more to a certain extent, she welcomed it.
When the wolf came again, she had already made peace with her future. She heard him when he was a long way off, her ears taking on the acute hearing of her lover's specie. She waited at the mouth of the cave for him, a strange, long-haired creature, no longer looking human because her skin was darkened by the continual exposure to the dust and grime of the cave. When she spotted him, she turned a number of circles, expressing joy, keeping her rear up so that he could get flashes of her waiting sex.
The wolf stalked around her and sniffed at the waiting prize. Then 107 fell to all fours, low to the ground and began walking away.
With a bound, the wolf was on her, suddenly ramming his hairy organ into her steaming nest. It was the first time they had coupled and 107 felt an ecstasy far beyond anything she had experienced in her life. It went deeper, sending her forward, ramming her to the earth. She struggled to rise, to impale herself deeper, to feel the thrusting column tear her body apart.
The wolf began to pump, wordless, unlike any human action, sending the wisdom of his race into her.
It was growing within her, seeking out the steaming pools of lust, twisting and turning in a bizarre dance that seemed to have no end. Her mouth was open and her hair fell, matted, over her shoulder.
She felt something wet on her shoulder as he pumped. It was the saliva from the wolf as it fell from his slavering jaws. The spittle caressed her, excited her, and she backed more savagely into him, to match the beauty of his thrusts.
In one burst of seed it was over and she moved away, squatting in a corner to lick her body.
During the nights that followed, the guards and the warden on Temas heard a strange sound. Instead of the single wailing howl of the wolf there were two. They heard the pure wolf-tones of 107 crying out in the night.